


Apocalyptic

by sspacemess



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura & Keith (Voltron) Friendship, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Gay Keith (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) Angst, Keith/Lance (Voltron) Angst, LOTS of violence, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Let me repeat, M/M, Orphan Keith (Voltron), Panic Attacks, THIS IS NOT SLOWBURN!!, past Shiro/Adam, this is not slow burn, zombie apocalypse AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 00:33:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17570882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sspacemess/pseuds/sspacemess
Summary: “Don’t move!” A voice yelled from the entrance, and really not in the mood to get even more beaten up, Keith froze. Listening to strangers wasn’t usually a hobby of his, but it wasn’t like he could get robbed when he had nothing.The voice belonged to a young man with sweaty brown hair, holding up a shotgun pointed right at Keith. Finger on the trigger.-Lance and Keith may not be able to live in a perfect world, but they can try to have a perfect relationship.





	1. New Teams

**Author's Note:**

> this is all based off of a role play that i’ve been doing on instagram!! exciting!!!! yes, i’m still going to be updating the mer-klance fic at the same time as this so don’t worry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith runs into a small group that is kind enough to help him out during a time of crisis.

Everything was dead silent in the abandoned hospital, and Keith thanked the lord that the floor weren’t floorboards or they’d be creaky as hell.

He wasn’t in the best position right now, alone scavenging for any medical equipment he could find. Sitting atop a stool he’d picked up and hastily dabbing on this rubbing alcohol stuff onto a wound on his left forearm. It was big, and due to it being caused by Keith rolling down a rocky hill there was dirt and everything in it.

That was three days ago, when he’d had his brother by his side and plenty of supplies to last them until they got to the next town over. Though, that hadn’t stopped Keith from refusing the medical help in need to save what they had. Shiro didn’t like that, and they had gotten in an argument about it.

In a fit of blurry rage Keith stormed off, not taking anything but what was currently in his pockets with him. Which, unfortunately, only happened to be some string, his knife, and an old photo.

Every bit of contact to his wounded flesh from the cotton swab hurt like hell. His pain tolerance was usually high, but after three days of constant walking and no sleep he wasn’t doing so good. Not to mention four days of not eating.

Reaching back out for the small bottle he accidentally hit a metal table, causing it to crash to the ground with a loud bang, the contents toppling off of it with metallic clatter after clatter.

He was absolutely screwed.

His flight or fight response went off, grabbing the bottle of rubbing alcohol and quickly standing up to make a run for it before any of them monsters could come in and eat him alive.

“Don’t move!” A voice yelled from the entrance, and really not in the mood to get even more beaten up Keith froze. Listening to strangers wasn’t usually a hobby of his, but it wasn’t like he could get robbed when he had nothing.

The voice belonged to a young man with sweaty brown hair, holding up a shotgun pointed right at Keith. Finger on the trigger.

He looked him up and now, then groaning and dropping the arm holding the gun to his side, “You’re not a threat! Jesus, you look half dead!” He exclaimed.

Keith still hadn’t said anything, or moved from his spot. Now would be the perfect time to bolt and get out of here, he thought, but there was no doubt this other group would catch him with how slow he was right now.

“Yeah, and probably actually is half dead too.” Another voice said, coming in from behind the young man.

Shiro.

Goddammit. Couldn’t Keith just get a break?

“Fuck off.” He finally hissed, not hesitating to move now because even if he wasn’t on exactly good terms with his brother he knew that he’d never hurt him. And wouldn’t let anybody else hurt him, for that matter.

“You know this guy, Shiro?” The man from before asked. Three other people were behind him, so it seemed like they were another small team. A team that Shiro betrayed him for.

“Mhm, and that’s why we’re going to help him,” Shiro said slowly, looking at Keith to see if he would openly protest before turning back to the others, “Right? Can you do that, Lance?”

“Most definitely, I can’t let such a pretty face die to an infection like that!” Lance chuckled, tossing the bag from his shoulder down and approaching Keith without any hesitation, “Now sit down before you fall down.”

Keith didn’t want to listen to him, he didn’t want to listen to any of these people. But that stupid mocking sentence, sit down before you fall down, rug again in his head and he knew that it was right. So, with a grunt and after kicking a stray can just go show his annoyance, he sat down on the hard ground.

“Good boy, now lemme look at that.” Lance said with a smile, being surprisingly careful as he brung Keith’s arm a little closer to inspect the wound. “Sorry, man, but that’s pretty bad.. I’ll put some proper disinfect on it, but I’m just warning you now that it stings a heap. Try not to scream.”

It sounded like another one of those stupid mocking sentences, but as he gentle patted the liquid on a cloth onto the wound it was evident now that he was absolutely right. Keith bit down on his lip as not to accidentally let out a yelp.

The pain must of been obvious in his face, as Lance pulled the cloth off, waiting a few seconds before putting it back on. “Talk to me, okay? What’s your name?” He asked, even though he already knew the others name but he needed to make sure he didn’t pass out.

“Keith.” He answered shortly, too busy clenching his jaw and curling and uncurling his fists.

“And your age?”

“Twenty.”

Lance hummed, taking another look at the wound before sighing and putting more of that nasty liquid onto the cloth, “Sorry about this, really, it’s just gotten to the point where it needs a decent fix.”

As soon as he pressed the cloth back on with a fresh dose of disinfectant Keith’s vision went slightly blurry, needing something to grab onto as he squeezed his eyes shut and blindly searched for something to hold. He ended up grabbing onto Lance’s arm, who got the message and shifted to hold his hand.

“Almost done.. hang in there buddy.” He whispered, rubbing circles into Keith’s hand with his thumb, trying to distract him.

Look, this wasn’t his fault, once again his pain tolerance wasn’t at its best right now. Keith was at a physical and mental low, so he didn’t think to push through it and pull himself back together again when he slumped forward a little onto Lance’s chest.

“Hey.. it’s almost done.. you’re okay..” Lance whispered, somewhat soothingly compared to the ringing currently in Keith’s ears, still stroking his hand.

“‘M’sorry” He mumbled, words clashing together as black dots swam around his vision, no longer able to keep his eyes open as he let them close and succumb to the darkness that was trying to take him away.

“Keith? Hey, Keith, man wake up! Keith!” Lance shouted, shaking the boy gently and putting down the cloth, not being successful as he turned back to the others, “He’s passed out!”


	2. Unconscious Cuddles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance helps in fixing Keith up, but wakes up in the middle of the night to the boy he’d just taken care of trying to leave.

“Oh my god, what do we do!” Lance yelled in a panic, coming to the conclusion that he couldn’t wake Keith back up and settled for just holding him close to his chest where he’d fallen.

“Calm down, we’ll figure this out,” Shiro said, coming in closer as he himself tried to work out what they were going to do, “Lance put a bandage on him, Pidge and Allura go searching for more supplies and some painkillers, Hunk keep watch.”

They all nodded, noticing the seriousness of the situation and going off to their respective jobs.

“Do you.. want to take him?” Lance asked hesitantly after he’d finished wrapping a bandage on Keith’s arm. He didn’t actually want to let go of the boy, feeling a little like it was his responsibility now but it appeared that Shiro and Keith were.. friends? Brothers? Partners?

“Nah, if he woke up and saw me first he wouldn’t be too happy.. we left on a bit of a rough patch, so that’ll take some talking to figure out.” Shiro shrugged, standing back up with a grunt to clean out this room a little more.

“You know him, yeah?” Lance asked again, watching as Shiro pushed metal tables back up and to the side.

“Mhm, he’s my brother, but around three days or so ago we got in a little argument and he stormed off.” He explained, still moving around the room while talking, “That’s probably why he’s gotten like this.”

Lance looked down at Keith still in his arms. The boy looked small, shaggy black hair and an almost precious looking structure, like if you hit him too hard he’d break. Probably weak from the infection. Still, Shiro was all muscle and actually looked pretty different from Keith.

Whatever, some brothers didn’t look exactly the same.

The silence in the room was tense, the only two conscious people in the room on edge about what was going to happen. Just then Allura ran back in, waving a bottle of what looked to be painkillers high above her head, “I found some!” She cheered.

Quickly, she tossed the bottle over and Shiro somehow managed to catch it from the other side of the room, coming back over to Lance and kneeling down. As he was getting out the pills he froze, “Keith can’t swallow pills.”

Lance also stopped to think, trying to figure out how to get over this next roadblock, “Water? We have water, yeah? Can’t we crush the pills up into a little water and give it to him?”

It sounded like it would work, so Shiro quickly crushed the three pills in his palm and tipped their contents into a bottle of water that they had in their stock. He wouldn’t need this much, but it was good to have some spare.

Lance put a gentle finger on Keith’s chin, pulling his mouth open and tipping his head back just enough that Shiro could pour some of the water into his mouth. They both held their breath, praying that it would be okay, and from the way Keith still didn’t wake up but definitely swallowed the water it did seem to work.

A little tired from that rushed ordeal, Lance leaned back against the wall behind him, keeping Keith close. He couldn’t move without risking waking the boy up, as they were still holding hands and his grip had only faltered slightly when he passed out.

“We should camp out here for the night, or at least until Keith is awake and back on his feet.” Shiro said, being the voice of reason as everybody nodded and listened to him right away. The current room must of been a lobby or something, since it was quite large and fairly empty. Perfect place to set up base for a little.

It wasn’t that late, but everyone settled into their own little spots to get some sleep in hopes of waking up early the next morning to keep moving. Lance was thrown a small blanket that was in no way big enough to cover both him and Keith, but he made do as best as he could.

“You’re gonna be okay, buddy.” He whispered, tucking a strand of hair back behind Keith’s ear before pulling him in a little closer and getting comfortable as he soon drifted off to sleep, huddled up next to him.

x

Well into the night did Keith finally come to wake. He didn’t quite know what was happening or where abouts he was, so he just laid there in the spot that was strangely warm. Not that he could complain, after three days of nothing but walking he welcomed rest.

At least, not until whatever figure was besides him moved a little. It was almost unnoticeable, just the twitch of an arm. He lifted his head to look at the other male, recognising him as the guy that’d helped him. 

There was a displeased expression on Lance’s face, scrunched up and brows drawn together. Then he mumbled something, much too quiet to be heard or make out but Keith was able to understand what was happening.

He put his hands on either side of Lance’s face, softly rubbing his cheek, “Shh.. it’s okay.. you’re okay..” He whispered, having no intentions of waking him up but just to settle him back down. And, surprisingly, it worked. 

Lance went slack again, relaxing back into a peaceful looking sleep. For a moment Keith hesitated, not sure what to do before he remembered the presence of a whole other group here. He couldn’t do this, he was meant to travel alone.

Slowly, as not to wake Lance back up, Keith stood and wrapped him back in the blanket that had fallen slightly before going over to where that rubbing alcohol was that he’d dropped.

“Where are you going?” Lance croaked from behind him, voice heavy with sleep, just as Keith was about to make a run for it.


	3. A Walk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith attempts to leave the group, but not after being stopped by Lance taking him on a strangely friendly walk.

“Away.” Keith answered bluntly, not really wanting to stick around and chat, he just wanted to get out of here.

This made Lance stand up, coming closer and draping the blanket over Keith shoulders, “You literally passed out while I was treating that nasty cut, you’re not going anywhere.”

With a grunt Keith shrugged the blanket off, letting it fall to the floor without much care, “You can’t tell me what to do.” He muttered somewhat harshly.

“Shh!” Lance placed a finger over Keith’s lips, trying to get him to be a little quieter, “You’re going to wake everybody else up! You should seriously stay, I thought we had a moment.”

There was a twinge of something in Lance’s voice. A playful edge, kind and cheery. Admittedly, Keith liked it, but not now when it wasn’t working in his favour.

“We did not have a moment.” He said bluntly, crossing his arms in front of him.

“Oh yes we did! You passed out on me and I was the one to take care of you, we even cuddled.” Lance teased, a wide smirk on his face as he was clearly having fun toying with the other like this.

“I was unconscious, so it wasn’t consensual cuddling, sorry.” Keith rolled his eyes, voice a little less harsh as it almost sounded like he was teasing right back, “Now, I’m sorry to cut this short but I’ll be leaving now.”

Just as Lance was about to frustratingly whisper-yell something else to try and get Keith to stay, Shiro stepped in through the doorway. He’d been keeping watch for the night and had managed to hear their little half argument.

“Are you boys okay?” He asked, not sure if anything was wrong but he wouldn’t put it past Keith to get pissy right now. 

“Nope! We’re okay! Just going for a little night walk, y’know, he needs some fresh air.” Lance quickly said, covering Keith’s mouth so that he couldn’t protest and announce that he was leaving. It worked, as Shiro gave a nod and went back to keeping watch.

“What the fuck?” Keith hissed, pushing the hand off of his mouth only for Lance to take it in his own and drag him over to the doorway.

“I said before, you’re not leaving. And we both know that if Shiro found out you were planning to he’d start stressing over it, hence why we’re going for a walk.” Lance explained with a too smug smile, and as soon as they got outside Keith pulled his hand away.

“I want to leave because wherever I go bad stuff happens. I’m not trying to be a dick, I’m trying to keep you guys safe. So Shiro has no reason to stress over me.”

Lance sighed, not getting very far so he was just going to have to convince Keith that he should stay instead of telling him why he should go. “But why be alone out there when you can be here, with me!” He exclaimed, grabbing Keith’s hand again.

“And why would I want to be with you?” Keith asked, that unfriendly bite to his voice now gone. 

“Who wouldn’t want to be with me?” Lance scoffed, keeping up his cocky persona as they walked.

The town was falling apart, a victim of many raids. One abandoned building was made of wood, crumbling apart but the most noticeable thing was a big symbol spray painted onto the wall in a deep purple. Keith visibly grimaced at the sight, running a hand over the paint.

“It’s still fresh.. we need to be careful, this is their turf.” He mumbled, brows drawn together in concern as he continued walking ahead.

“A gang? Great, they’re nasty. Not fun.” Lance scrunched up his face in a distasteful expression. Nobody liked gangs unless they were apart of one, they were dangerous and only cared about their own kind.

Keith gave a hum of understanding, his fingers digging slightly into his arms in reaction to the chilly air, “They’re nasty to you, but just because they steal shit doesn’t mean they’re absolutely terrible.”

“Why are you defending them? They do bad things and hurt people.”

“Yeah, they hurt people to protect themselves. Like everybody else out here.”

Lance was a little confused as to why Keith was openly defending them, grabbing onto the boys arm so he couldn’t keep walking off, “Are you..?”

Keith froze up, he understood the question and didn’t quite know how to answer without screwing up everything. 

“No.. well, yeah, used to but.. not anymore, no,” He stammered, glancing off to the side to avoid eye contact, “That’s.. where I was going to go after I left you guys.. back to them. They’ll take me back, surely.”

“How long ago?” Lance asked.

“Uh.. two? Years ago? When this thing first started, I spent a few months with them before I ditched to meet back up with Shiro. He doesn’t know. Don’t tell him.” 

He honestly expected to be yelled at, or pushed away, or told that he was a terrible person. But none of that came, and when he looked back over at Lance he was met with a concerned expression.

“Then you should know yourself that gangs don’t take back traitors. That’s, like, the number one rule.. you’ll get yourself hurt if you go back there.” Lance said, a worried frown on his face.

Keith went to say something but then paused, not exactly sure what to say in the first place. This felt strange. Someone he barely knew was being nice to him and it didn’t feel normal, “Are you sure? I don’t want to be a burden to your team..”

Lance’s face seemed to light up, taking that as close to an agreement as he was going to get. “Yeah! Don’t worry about being a burden, all we ask of you is that you help us out. Plus, you’re Shiros brother, so we kind of have to.”

With both of the boys now wearing smiles, even if Keith’s was small and timid, they set off to take a look inside of the building they were stopped in front of

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the timeline for this story is going to be WHACK so keep notes, all of these little details are important.


	4. Bloodshed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Lance find a heap of loot to take back, but the actual owner of said loot isn’t too keen on them doing that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i told you this wasn’t slowburn

The building must of been a house or something, falling apart with wooden splinters everywhere.

They cautiously made their way inside, looking around the small place before coming across a wall stacked high with boxes of junk. No way someone left a heap of perfectly fine shit here.

“This must be a place that the gang that marked out front leaves all their stuff they don’t currently need.. a storage unit of sorts.” Keith said, lifting a blanket to look at the abundance of things like flashlights and lighters.

“Screw them, they aren’t here so let’s take what we can and get out!” Lance cheered. He wasn’t as careful about all of this, looking through one of the boxes and piling up anything they could make use of in his arms.

Keith bit his lip, watching as the other boy dumped what he’d picked up back into the box and tried to pick it up, failing miserably, “Stop trying to lift it on your own, you’ll hurt yourself doing that. I’ll help.”

Of course, that only got him more teasing, “Aw~ you don’t want me to get hurt! You’re all rough on the outside but inside, you’re just soft.”

“No, I’m definitely not soft.” Keith scoffed, pushing away the tanned finger that was prodding at his cheek. No way he was being soft, especially for this very mildly attractive guy. Attractive nice guy.

Lance didn’t give up easily, wrapping his arms around Keith from behind as he searched and packed, leaning his chin on the others head. Being tall had never worked so well for him, “C’mon, you know that you are. And you love that you’re able to show your true colours around me.”

“Wrong.”

“I’m not going to stop until you admit it~” Lance sung, taking a different approach as he kissed Keith’s cheek lovingly, rubbing his own cheek against the soft and slightly squishy skin. It worked perfectly, judging by how Keith snorted and his face lit up a bright red.

“Oh my god, stop it!” He chuckled, turning his head to face Lance, but the other just rubbed their noses together which unfortunately made him grin more, “Okay, okay.. I’m soft for you, happy?”

“Very.” Lance mumbled, proud that he’d managed to squeeze that out of Keith as he pulled away to help out. Though he’d never say it in a million years, Keith missed the warmth of another body behind him when Lance moved.

To get the box (crate?) to the doorway they had to pretty much push it across the floor, managing to shove it halfway before they heard a crack. Both of the boys looked at each other, hearing another crack as they froze in panic.

“This floor isn’t stable.” Keith said, eyes blown wide as he looked below them. They were going to fall in, there was no doubt. He had no idea how far down the next level was, but they couldn’t go back now.

There was another, louder crack, the floor beneath them sinking down a level. Keith let out a shrill yelp, leaning forward over the box to grab onto Lance’s hand. He didn’t protest, only holding on tight.

Suddenly the floor gave out, sending the two free falling down a few meters only to hit the concrete below, and hard. Lance fell right on his ass, groaning at the impact, while Keith fell on his back and the crate landed on top of his foot.

“Fucking christ!” He yelled harshly, wincing as he quickly pulled it out from under the box, biting hard into his lip to avoid making any more sound.

“You good?” Lance asked, pulling himself up to kneel with a grunt and dropping down closer next to Keith.

“No, no! Does it look like I’m okay? Mother fucker!” He hissed in reply, kicking the box with his good foot before taking a deep breath and dropping his head onto Lance’s shoulder, “Yes.. I’m fine, sorry.”

Lance didn’t know much about Keith, but could guess that he had some sort of anger issues. He gave pity to this, wrapping an arm around him and letting him calm down a little in his own time. It was almost peaceful between the two, until there was a third voice in the room.

“Now, let’s think about what would be an appropriate way to punish people who tries to steal our loot.” A man said coldly, coming out from around a corner with another, older guy hot on his tail, “Might even make it worse considering we’ve found our missing runt.”

Keith visibly flinched at the name, lifting his head reluctantly to shoot a cold glare, “Do your worst.”

“Uh, Keith, bud. Maybe we shouldn’t say that.. they could literally kill us.” Lance whispered, eyes darting between the two men in worry. He really hadn’t been expecting this, and with Keith’s headstrong attitude it didn’t seem like they could bribe their way out.

There was a look exchanged between the two standing, one coming over to haul both Lance and Keith to their feet, while the other pushed the crate over to the side. Forcefully, the boys were pushed down to sit back to back, their hands tied together with a tight rope that made them both wince.

“Don’t do this.” Keith muttered, receiving a kick to his side as he sucked in a shark breath and kept his head down and quiet. 

Then there was a muffled groaning sound, Keith and Lance both not able to keep their heads bowed as they turned to look at what was actually happening. Two of those gross zombies were chained to the wall, but clearly not for long as with every time they tried to lunge forward the chain would come further out of the wall.

This must be a regular set up, and they were definitely going to die. Looking around, the two men were also gone. Not bothering to take their loot with them because they even knew that Keith and Lance were going to die.

Then, the tears bubbled up. Lance couldn’t find anything to say, and couldn’t do anything other than let himself cry, “I didn’t wanna die so soon.” He sobbed.

Keith decided right then and there, he didn’t like to hear Lance cry. No way would he sit there and listen to that, to have someone so bright break down right behind him.

“It’s okay.. I’ll figure this out,” He whispered, trying to think of what to do, “I need you to pull in the opposite direction to me, as hard as you can.”

And Lance did as he was told, closing his eyes tight to avoid looking at the creatures made to kill them, wincing slightly at the bite the rope gave in his skin while he pulled.

With a deep breath, Keith yanked his own wrists forward. He returned to biting his lip, not wanting to make sound and let Lance know of what he was actually doing yet. His hands moved back and forth, the rope cutting into his skin, leaving a nasty rope burn that made his wrists bleed.

Now with the rope worn down a little and sticky from the blood, he picked at it enough to squeeze a hand out, then untying the knot to get his other hand out. Not leaving any time to dwell on how his wrists ached and burned, he rushed over to where their stuff had been thrown, retrieving his knife and coming back to cut Lance’s ropes off.

He instantly grabbed onto Lance’s hand, pulling him over to where it was safe even when he was speechless in shock. After pushing a gun into Lance’s hands he seemed to understand, cocking it and shooting the two monsters right in the head with a bang.

They looked at each other in silence, taking in what had just happened. Lance’s gaze drifted down to where blood was spilling from both of Keith’s wrists as he desperately tried to stop it.

“You.. got yourself hurt saving us, you’re bleeding.. holy shit, you’re bleeding!” His brain finally caught up, pulling Keith in close as he looked at the twin wounds, “I should’ve helped, I can’t believe I was crying like a baby when you were getting hurt.”

“Hey.. don’t say that, you did fine.. it was a scary situation, but we did it. You’re safe now.” Keith mumbled, looking up at Lance with a smile. He wasn’t the best at being comforting, but he tried his hardest.

It was a strange moment, both of their hands stained red with one boys blood. Still smiling as they looked at each other. Lance couldn’t help himself even if he wanted to, hesitantly leaning in a few inches. He paused, waiting until Keith gave a small nod before he closed the gap between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has got to be one of my favourite moments and things keith has done in the original role play, so i tried to make it as cool as it was.  
> don’t forget to leave some feedback! there’s nothing i love more than comments <3


End file.
